Yale SOM MBA Admission Interviews

This will be a rather brief post on MBA Admissions Interviews for the Yale School of Management MBA Class of 2015.  Based on a client report (I had one client who was admitted there in R1, you can find that client’s testimonial as well) and the sole report in Clear Admit (Accepted had no reports for the Class of 2015 R1), Yale has radically changed its interview style.  Previously it asked a range of standard MBA interview questions plus a few weird ones focusing on college (which made the interview seem kind of immature and childish in tone compared to other schools), but this has completely changed.  The Yale website does not really explain this in any specific way. Actually the only discussion I could even find of the contents of the interview was the following, which is from the October 2012: From the Director of Admissions: Inside the Admissions Process: 

“At the interview, we will ask you questions about your past experiences and decisions, in order to get a better sense of how you act and think. The best way to prepare for an interview is to know your resume, re-read your application essays, and have a good sense of what you have done well—and not so well—in the past, and why.”

There is no indication here that the interview content has greatly changed, but based on the reports I have seen for round one, it has changed greatly.

(By the way, this same blog post mentions the role of interviews in the MBA application process:
“Interviews are by invitation of the Admissions Committee. We invite applicants to interview throughout the round. At the moment, we have extended roughly one-third of the total invitations we plan to offer for the round; more invitations will be coming in the next few weeks. While an interview invitation is certainly a positive sign—it’s not possible to be admitted without one—it should not be viewed as an indication of your final decision. We typically interview roughly 30% of our applicants, and a little more than half of those interviewed are ultimately offered a place in the class.” )

Here is an excerpt from the one R1 report for the Class of 2015 available on Clear Admit:
“It was all behavioral questions–tell me about a time you faced a deadline, tell me about a time you disagreed with your boss, tell me about a time you improved something in your office. It was all over the place and the only question that was straight-forward was "Why SOM." 

While I can’t disclose the specific content of my own client’s R1 report,  it is safe to say that the content was consistent with the above report.

You can assume whether you interview with a second-year student or an admissions officer, they will come in with a list of behavioral questions plus asking you a few standard type questions (Why MBA? Why SOM? What are your goals?  Do you have any questions).  Until I actually have more interview reports to work with and better characterize the specific types of behavioral interview questions that Yale is asking, I recommend reviewing my analysis of MIT Sloan MBA interviews because it provides a complete guide to preparing for behavioral interviews. If you are interested in my interview preparation services, please complete my interview-only intake form.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

Preparing for Wharton Interviews for the Class of 2015

In this post, I discuss how to prepare for Wharton Round 2 Interviews for fall 2013 entry.  This post consolidates my three previous posts on Wharton Interviews for the Class of 2015:

Wharton Group Interview Questions Now Made Public (Round 1, not Round 2)

More details about Wharton MBA Interviews for 2013 entry

Wharton Interviews for the Class of 2015

There are two parts to the Wharton interview, the team-based interview and one-to-one interview.  Each part can be prepared for. I am assuming anyone who is reading this post has actually been invited for a Wharton interview and has reviewed the official information regarding it.


TEAM-BASED DISCUSSION
I will not disclose the contents of the specific team-based question that Wharton has Round 2 interviewees to prepare for because it is not available on the web as of the time of this posting. I do know the question, but it is my policy not provide such information unless I have obtained it from a public source.

Since I don’t have a school and don’t teach classes with multiple applicants at one time, I cannot provide a mock team discussion. However, based on working with clients who have been doing group interviews for Wharton R1, and IMD (IMD is the school best known for group interviews),  I do have some suggestions as well as methods to prepare clients.

Here are some basic group interview strategies to keep in mind:

1. Be someone who makes clear and effective points in the conversation, but does not dominate the conversation.

2. Don’t be rude to others. Rude jerks are the easiest people to get rid of when evaluating participants in a team based discussion. Stanford Professor Bob Sutton’s No Asshole Rule surely applies here:  CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT IF YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.

3. Listen closely enough to others in order to say something that builds on or reacts against what other people are saying. Refer to what others are saying in order to build consensus.

4. Try to provide constructive communication that moves the discussion forward to a positive conclusion. Make an effort to include others in the conversation.

5. Don’t be afraid to make a less than perfect point. If you do that too much, you will never get enough speaking time and perceived as shy and ineffective in team situations. That will get you dinged.

6. Synthesize and summarize the team’s conversation in order to move the conversation forward.

7.  Use hedging language and other forms of consensus building language. Try to avoid being dismissive of the views of others.

8. If you are having difficulty understanding someone because of their accent or because of your poor English listening skills, still engage in non-verbal demonstrations that you understand what they are saying.  Non-verbal communication will surely be observed, so if you look confused or frustrated that could be used against you.

9. Smile and show eye contact with other people.

10.  Make sure that you don’t slouch in your seat, but are sitting tall and look like a positive and engaged person.

11. Be willing to serve as the group in a functional role: timekeeper, note taker, or facilitator.  Making a contribution is of bottom line importance.

How I prepare my clients for the team discussion: The main thing I can do is go over the question and make sure my client’s prepared opening comments are effective.  The nice part of the Wharton team discussion is that you do have the question ahead of time and know what possible variations you will encounter.  For Round 2 interviews you essentially need to prepare three separate answers based on the three possible variations you will encounter. I would review each answer by listening to my client’s opening answers.  I assess each opening answer on the following basis:

1. Does the suggested answer address the topic directly?

2. Is the suggested answer one that other group members and the interviewer can easily understand?

3.  Can the answer be communicated very briefly? Given time limits you will need to communicate it very briefly.

4.  Is the answer interesting/original/creative?

5. Are there any negative aspects to the proposed answer?

I can’t effectively prepare someone for the actual dynamics of a group conversation, but by at least making sure my client’s opening is solid, I know they will at least be well positioned to start strong.

SHORT INDIVIDUAL DISCUSSION (ONE-TO-ONE POST TEAM-BASED DISCUSSION INTERVIEW)
Based on what my Round One clients reported to me and the public reports on Clear Admit, the 15-minute one-to-one interview is likely to consist of 4-6 questions, which I have divided  into the following two categories.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE  TEAM BASED INTERVIEW
It appears that all applicants were asked both of the questions below.  Be prepared to provide your feedback on the team-based interview.  Assume that this is a test of your self-awareness of group dynamics, an opportunity to explain the role you took in the group, and a chance, hopefully to correct any misperceptions of yourself on the part of the interviewer. 
1) How do you think the team-based interview went?
2) Was your behavior typical of how you work in a team? / Was your behavior in the Team-Based Discussion representative of the way you typically act in group settings?
How I prepare my clients for this part of the interview: I can’t really do that because it is based on what actually happened in the interview.  The only thing I can do is make sure that my client realizes that they will be asked such questions and that they should be mindful of the role that they performed in the group. For example,  if the interviewer perceives you, as say, overly reserved or overly aggressive, you need to be ready to discuss that issue.

TYPICAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (Assume 2-4 such questions)
This is the standard part of the interview. If you are doing more Standard interviews, it will be easy to prepare for this part.  For advice on more standard interviews, please see my  MBA Application Interview Strategy. I highly recommend reviewing your resume and Wharton essays as part of your preparations.  You should surely be able to explain why Wharton in particular is the ideal place for you to study.  You  should have 1-2 questions available. If you are interviewing off-campus, you should have questions ready for an admissions officer. If you are interviewing on-campus, you had better be prepared to have questions ready for both an admissions offer and a 2nd year student.
Do you want to highlight anything in your application?
Introduce yourself
Discuss your career progress
Tell me about a time when you worked in a group in which everyone did not agree and how did your team resolve the situation?
What is your post-MBA goal?
Why MBA?
Why Wharton?
Do you have any questions for me?
Anything you want to add?

How I prepare my clients for the individual interview: I would typically ask my clients these questions in a mock interview.  It would not be completely realistic because I would go over all the above questions just to make sure that my client was covered for all the above topics. If we were preparing for more standard interviews (Booth, Columbia, Kellogg, Haas, etc.), it might not really be necessary to go over this part of the interview for Wharton.


For more about my interview services, please see http://www.adammarkus.com/services/.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

Adam's Global Top MBA Rankings 2013

As I have been doing since 2008, I wanted to provide my Global Top 100 MBA Rankings for 2013.  The rankings below should hopefully be of value for both those engaged in initial school application selection and for admitted applicants who have been accepted to multiple programs and need to determine where to go.  Programs are ranked in many ways, so certainly look at other rankings lists. There is no one objective measure of an MBA programs’ value and no ranking that can account for an individual student’s positive or negative return on their investment of time and money for a graduate business education.

"Methodology": All FT “Global MBA Rankings 2013” Data was ranked in order of " Weighted Salary ($)." No other methods were employed. I have included the FT 2013 rankings as well.

Justification #1: Whatever they pay you when you graduate is the market value of your degree, all other factors are mere conjecture.

Justification #2: One may very well value an MBA beyond mere salary calculations, but salary will certainly be a factor for almost everyone.

Justification #3: Since each school reports its own data, assuming that data is good, the ranking is based on objective criteria that all programs have in common. (Note: This a big assumption because it is based on the belief that schools are not manipulating their data).

Disclaimer #1: I could use some other accumulation of salaries for this same purpose, but FT’s list is global, so I decided to use it. If your school is not included on this list of the top 100, please don't be offended. If FT ranked more programs, so would I.

Disclaimer #2: Actual market value will very much depend on your situation. The numbers below are only averages.

Disclaimer #3: Salary is but one measure of ROI. This survey does not account for relative increase in salary, opportunity costs, or other less tangible, but important factors.

Disclaimer #4: These rankings in no way measure the value of the educational experience at any of these programs, merely the reported average weighted post-MBA salary outcome.

School Selection Strategy for Those Admitted to Multiple Programs: Go to the highest salary ranked program if you want to obtain the most market value.


School Application Selection Strategy Based on Salary Approach: Simply compare salaries to rates of admission which are available for all US programs listed in BusinessWeek and US News and World Report and for some non-US programs.
1. Apply to the highest ranked programs you think you can get it into.
2. Find bargains: Schools with a high salary and a high rate of admission.
3. Avoid application to schools with a relatively low admissions rates and lower salaries.
4. Caveat emptor. Don’t assume schools are necessarily reporting data with 100% accuracy.


School Selection Strategy for Those Considering Staying Local versus Going for a Globally Recognized Brand:  If you are deciding between going to your local MBA program instead of moving to a new city and/or country, look closely at the expected post-MBA salary rates to determine which programs are worth moving for.
1. If you are planning on studying in the US and/or Europe and are a non-resident, assume the real possibility, based on present economic circumstances, that you will likely need to return to your home country because of tightened visa restrictions and limited job opportunities.
2. If your objective is stay in your present locality, closely scrutinize whether the higher-ranked, but non-local option will actually prove to be of significant benefit to you in the future. For example, an MBA alumni network that consists of a large number of local graduates may be worth significantly more to you than association with a prestigious internationally famous brand if you intend to stay local.
3.  If your professional objectives are global, you will likely benefit much more from an MBA with global brand value rather than a program with local brand value even if the post-MBA salaries are not significantly different.

One advantage of a salary-based list of programs worldwide is that it helps to see the rising global market value of MBA programs. It also means that those of us who help applicants considering worldwide application, start to pay more attention to such national leaders and not just to dominant US and European programs.

For those with a US MBA bias, this ranking should be humbling because so many of what are usually ranked quite highly in the US, don’t, at least at the weighted salary level, look as attractive as rankings might suggest.

From a school selection perspective, I think looking at the stark reality of the expected financial outcome is critical. Looking at this solely helps to put the outcome into focus. “The 100″ is only one possible way of doing this.

I am well aware that applicants don’t simply make selection choices on the basis of salary, but I think evaluating programs on this basis is one important consideration.

Finally, I would like to thank “my team” at FT for doing all of the hard work. They have this nifty way of generating excel documents that really reduced my work by hours.

The Top 100 Global MBA Programs

Adam’s Ranking	School name	Country	Weighted salary (US$)	FT Rank in 2013
1	Stanford Graduate School of Business	US	194645	2
2	Harvard Business School	US	187223	1
3	University of Pennsylvania: Wharton	US	180772	3
4	Columbia Business School	US	174347	5
5	Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad	India	171188	26
6	University of Chicago: Booth	US	162363	10
7	Northwestern University: Kellogg	US	161269	13
8	London Business School	UK	160988	4
9	MIT: Sloan	US	160414	9
10	Yale School of Management	US	159370	14
11	IE Business School	Spain	157054	11
12	Dartmouth College: Tuck	US	156765	16
13	INSEAD	France / Singapore	153992	6
14	University of California at Berkeley: Haas	US	151952	12
15	Cornell University: Johnson	US	147799	24
16	IMD	Switzerland	147380	19
16	UCLA: Anderson	US	147125	23
18	IESE Business School	Spain	146049	7
19	University of Cambridge: Judge	UK	145169	16
19	Duke University: Fuqua	US	145147	18
21	New York University: Stern	US	144586	19
22	University of Virginia: Darden	US	142657	35
23	University of Michigan: Ross	US	140195	30
24	University of Cape Town GSB	South Africa	137361	74
24	University of Oxford: Saïd	UK	136609	24
26	Hong Kong UST Business School	China	132685	8
27	The Lisbon MBA	Portugal	132606	61
28	CEIBS	China	131362	15
29	Carnegie Mellon: Tepper	US	131294	43
30	Georgetown University: McDonough	US	130676	40
31	University of Texas at Austin: McCombs	US	128711	46
32	Cranfield School of Management	UK	127911	38
33	Esade Business School	Spain	126699	22
34	Emory University: Goizueta	US	124918	49
35	Korea University Business School	South Korea	124419	86
36	HEC Paris	France	123571	21
37	Indian School of Business	India	123470	34
38	University of North Carolina: Kenan-Flagler	US	123004	45
39	Rice University: Jones	US	122832	37
40	University of Southern California: Marshall	US	120251	82
40	Warwick Business School	UK	120111	28
42	Vanderbilt University: Owen	US	119178	53
43	Australian School of Business (AGSM)	Australia	118050	48
44	City University: Cass	UK	117195	40
45	Babson College: Olin	US	116212	80
46	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	US	115493	44
46	Manchester Business School	UK	114769	29
48	University of Rochester: Simon	US	114312	59
49	University of Hong Kong	China	114119	31
50	Indiana University: Kelley	US	112932	54
51	SDA Bocconi	Italy	112673	39
52	University of Maryland: Smith	US	112552	50
53	Hult International Business School	US / UK / UAE / China	112520	57
54	Georgia Institute of Technology: Scheller	US	111683	59
54	Pennsylvania State University: Smeal	US	111359	77
54	Boston College: Carroll	US	111051	93
57	Texas A & M University: Mays	US	110765	69
57	University College Dublin: Smurfit	Ireland	110099	64
59	Wisconsin School of Business	US	109878	91
59	Tulane University: Freeman	US	109334	81
61	Washington University: Olin	US	109119	54
62	University of Washington: Foster	US	108899	78
62	University of Strathclyde Business School	UK	108601	87
64	Boston University School of Management	US	108474	95
64	University of California at Irvine: Merage	US	107582	54
66	Michigan State University: Broad	US	107453	62
66	SMU: Cox	US	107264	98
68	Imperial College Business School	UK	107032	42
69	Melbourne Business School	Australia	106887	62
69	Sungkyunkwan University SKK GSB	South Korea	106864	51
71	Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University	Netherlands	105546	33
72	University of Iowa: Tippie	US	105063	74
72	Purdue University: Krannert	US	104362	68
74	CUHK Business School	China	103423	27
74	University of Western Ontario: Ivey	Canada	103112	78
76	Ohio State University: Fisher	US	103064	72
77	College of William and Mary: Mason	US	102842	97
78	Nanyang Business School	Singapore	102683	32
78	University of St Gallen	Switzerland	100814	82
80	George Washington University	US	100600	84
81	University of Bath School of Management	UK	99916	72
82	Arizona State University: Carey	US	99796	87
82	Case Western Reserve University: Weatherhead	US	99343	94
84	University of California, San Diego: Rady	US	98556	95
84	Mannheim Business School	Germany	98262	69
86	University of Toronto: Rotman	Canada	97652	46
87	Coppead	Brazil	96621	66
87	Lancaster University Management School	UK	96080	71
89	Vlerick Business School	Belgium	94829	84
90	EMLyon Business School	France	94394	92
91	National University of Singapore Business School	Singapore	94340	36
92	Tilburg University, TiasNimbas	Netherlands	93859	64
93	York University: Schulich	Canada	93207	52
94	University of South Carolina: Moore	US	91878	99
95	University of British Columbia: Sauder	Canada	90833	57
95	McGill University: Desautels	Canada	90440	76
97	University of Alberta	Canada	86666	100
98	Incae Business School	Costa Rica	86060	90
99	Fudan University School of Management	China	80154	89
100	Peking University: Guanghua	China	77044	66

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

IESE MBA Application Essays (2012-2013)

This is my analysis of IESE Essays (2012-2013) for admission to the MBA Class of 2015.

IESE offers an intensive case study based MBA program. It was founded with the active cooperation of HBS and its first-year is a core curriculum program where a section of approximately 70 students will take all the same classes together. While the first-year is rather rigid, the second-year allows for great flexibility including the opportunity to take courses in Spanish and opportunities to study abroad.  If you are looking for academic rigour, international diversity amongst students and faculty, want to spend two years in one the world’s greatest cities, IESE should be on your short-list.  Based on what I observed during my 2012 visit there and through talking with former clients over the years, IESE offers an intensive MBA education. The first-year at IESE is simply extremely hard.

One of the nice things that IESE does is actually provide initial feedback to potential applicants. You can get feedback on your profile by completing this feedback form. Knowing where admissions sees potential fit is a great way to determine whether to apply.

IESE is no party school. It might be in a town well known for having a good time, but if you have any thoughts of  enjoying the fun in Barcelona every evening, I think you will have to wait for the second year of the program.  During your first year at IESE, expect to be reading cases and talking cases.  Last year, I also visited IMD, another program well known for being intense. I think it fair to say that these two European non-party schools contrast with LBS and INSEAD, the other top European B-schools, but ones well known as P(arty) Schools.

My clients who apply to IESE, typically apply to some combination of the three schools I mentioned in the previous paragraph and/or US two-year programs.  You can find testimonials from 2 of the 7 clients I worked with who were admitted to IESE in past years.

IESE has 6 deadlines, 3 of which have passed at the time of writing.  I wish I had been able to get this post up earlier, but in future years I hope to have it up well in advance of the first round deadline.

Essays: Like with many top US schools, IESE has also reduced the total number of essays. Compared to IMD, INSEAD, or LBS, IESE’s essay set is small and relatively easy to answer. If you have already done the essays for IMD or INSEAD, the IESE essays will be particularly easy.


IESE Essay 1: Describe your short-term and long-term career goals (post MBA). (300 word limit)
This is a very standard goals statement. The fact that it is brief means you need to provide a future focused statement. Extensive discussion of your past experience or of why you want to attend IESE will just not fit here. However, I think it is important to explain why you want an IESE MBA at least briefly.  Your reader should both understand what your goals and have at least a clear idea, though not the details of why you want an IESE MBA.  This is the advice I have given to my clients applying to IESE.  As is generally the case, conceive of your short-term goal as a plan and your long-term goal as a vision.  Make sure that your goals intuitively connect together because you don’t have space for any sort of extensive discussion of goals that don’t connect together logically.

If you are having difficulty formulating your goals, please see my method for formulating goals, which can be found in my analysis of Stanford’s goal essay.


IESE Essay 2: Describe two substantial accomplishments and one failure in a professional or private endeavour. (600 word limit)
This is very limited word count to cover all of this. Please see my analysis of INSEAD’s substantial accomplishments (Essay 2) and Failure (Essay 3) questions as that analysis applies here.

The only differences between IESE and INSEAD is that INSEAD will give you  400 words for the accomplishments and wants one to be personal and 400 words for the failure.  In the case of IESE, you are free to distribute the 600 words in any way you like, which means you might find yourself needing say 250 words for one accomplishment, 150 for another accomplishment, and 200 words for a failure.


IESE Essay 3: I wish that the application had asked me… (200 word limit)
Think very carefully about how you want to use this.  I would avoid discussing something negative here unless absolutely necessary. Instead focus on something(s) that you think will help IESE understand why you belong in their program.

I don’t suggest using this as a place for simply explaining something negative like a bad GPA or GMAT or TOEFL, instead provide admissions with greater insight into who you are. Use this question to balance out the rest of your application by discussing some aspect of who you are that has not been sufficiently focused on.

Specifically ask yourself, What else can I tell IESE that help them understand why they should admit me?

While you will likely use this space for an essay that might be utilized for another application, it is critical that IESE not get the impression that you have done so. As with any school, I think it is important that IESE admissions gets the impression that you specifically tailored this essay to their school.

Since you have already discussed your goals, I would not suggest using the essay for that purpose. You may want to use this as a contribution type essay where you discuss one or more ways you can contribute to the program. If you decide to write a contribution type answer here, please see my analysis of LBS Questions 3-5.

However you answer this question, it should give IESE further reason to want to interview you.

My post on IESE interviews will be coming soon.

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.

Kellogg MBA Admissions Interviews

This post has been greatly expanded from prior versions and has been updated for admission to the Kellogg MBA Class of 2015.

Just as with essays, interviews for the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management MBA applicant interviews are all about fit.I could not really tell you how many Kellogg mock sessions I have conducted since 2001, when I started working as an admissions consultant, because the number is simply too huge. Given the fact that Kellogg has an open interview policy, more applicants will interview there in any year that anywhere else. As I work with clients from all over the world, I have discovered that Kellogg interviews are pretty consistent worldwide, both for the  good and bad.  

Know your Resume!

You need to know your resume completely as you will most likely be asked about content in it. Review it carefully and consider what your interviewer might ask you to explain more thoroughly. If it is on your resume, it is fair game. Kellogg interviews are conducted blind, so your interview will not have read your application. The only thing they will have is your resume. Most interview reports indicate extensive questions about the contents of the resume. As such it serves form main functions:

A First Impression: Most interviewers will have your resume even before they meet you. For resume-only interviews, it really is their first impression of you.  Make sure your resume is really designed for ease of use by the interviewer.  One of my objectives when helping a client with a resume is always to focus on how effective the resume is for this purpose.

Agenda Setting Device: To a greater or lesser extent, a resume has an agenda setting function in many interviews.  While schools will provide interviewers with varying levels of guidance about what questions to ask, the resume may very well form the basis for some of the questions that you receive. 

Booby Trap:  The resume can blow-up in your face if you are not careful.  Failure to review your own resume closely prior to interviewing can put you in an awkward position if you are not fully prepared to discuss everything on it. Make sure you know your numbers and dates. Make sure you can discuss anything on your resume.

Past Experience Answers: Since you have presumably highlighted many of the key things you would actually want to discuss on your resume, it is in essence, a primary source for your answers to past experience questions. Especially when I working with a client with limited English ability, I will tell them to practice explaining "Who What Why How When" questions related to their resume.

In addition, since you might get asked to "Tell me something about yourself that is not covered on your resume," you can use the resume to figure out what that would be.

You need to be prepared to answer routine MBA interview questions

Most reported Kellogg interviews simply consist of them. See my previous post on MBA Application Interview Strategy as well the list of questions below. You should expect to have to answer questions regarding teamwork (Examples where you demonstrated it, how you handled problems on teams, and how you would handle a low-performing team member in group work at Kellogg are common examples).  Be absolutely comfortable explaining core questions regarding fit (Why Kellogg? Why the Kellogg community is right for you?  Contributions?) as these always come up.   Be ready to ask questions and obviously make those questions fit to the person you are talking (admissions officer, student, or alumni). My colleague, Steve Green, has collected the following common questions:

RESUME: Career

• Tell me about yourself. / Walk me through your resume. PROBE ANSWERS
• Tell me about [particular accomplishment]
• Tell me about [particular promotion or change]
• What is missing from your resume that you'd like to tell me about?
• What led you to your first job?
• What made you change careers? (+ Follow-up)
• Why did you decide to switch into the field that you chose?
• How have you grown over the years?
• Tell me about what’s challenging in your current role. (+ Follow-up)
• Why did you choose ________________ for your career?
• What are your current responsibilities?
• What do you clients say about you?
• What do you outside of work?

RESUME: Education

• Why did you choose your undergraduate school?
• Why did you choose your major?
• Tell me something about your undergraduate experience?
• What was your legacy at your undergrad school?
• Why did you choose ________________ for your career?
• What are your current responsibilities?
• What do you clients say about you?
• What do you outside of work?

TEAMWORK

• Tell me about your teamwork experience.
• Describe a difficult team situation you have had to deal with in the past?
• Tell me about another teamwork experience.
• What would you do when a team member wasn't pulling his own weight?
• What would your teammates say about you?
• Discuss a team failure you were part of.

LEADERSHIP

• Who do you admire as a leader?
• Have you held leadership positions at work?
• Tell me something about your leadership experience?
• Have you faced any challenges as a leader? How did you deal with them?
• How has your leadership style evolved since college?
• What kind of leader are you?

WHY MBA / WHY KELLOGG

• Why do you want an MBA?
• Why now?
• Why Kellogg?
• Are you good with numbers?
• What are your goals?
• How will Kellogg help you achieve those goals?
• How do you envision yourself being involved in the Kellogg community?
• What clubs will you participate in?
• How will you enhance the diversity of the Kellogg class?
• What unique contribution do you bring to Kellogg?
• What other schools did you apply to?
• If you got into all of them, which would you attend?

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES

• If you could hit the reset button, what would you do differently?
• Anything that may be considered a weakness in your application you would like to explain or expand on?
• How have you grown over the years?
• What are your two main strengths?
• What are your two main weaknesses?
• If time and money were not an issue, what would you do?
• What three words would you use to describe yourself?
• Who is a good negotiator?
• Have you ever been in a negotiation where it wasn’t win – win, rather, win-lose or lose-lose.
• What do people misperceive about you in first meeting?
• If I asked your colleagues about you, what would they say? What feedback have you used to do better?

CONCLUSION

• What questions do you have for me? / Do you have any questions for me?

In MBA Application Interview Strategy I discuss some specific ways to prepare for many of the types of questions discussed above. Additionally, since some Kellogg interviews involve behavioral interview questions, I would suggest reviewing my post,  MIT Sloan MBA Interviews.  MIT Sloan MBA Interviews

will also introduce you to the STAR method for telling stories, so if you need help in telling stories (especially ones about teamwork and leadershIp), I recommend reviewing that post.

Reread your essays!

Given that your Kellogg essays should contain key content to answer many of the above interview questions and because no interviewer will have read your file, feel free to make complete use of your essays for your interview.  It surprises sometimes when I am doing mock interviews with a client and they have not reviewed their own essays very much. This a core repository of content. It will need to be altered for purposes of the interview, but you should use it!

Reported interview length could be from 30 to 60 minutes, with most reported interviews taking 30-45 minutes.

Lack of Consistency in Kellogg interviews

As you should know Kellogg’s new motto is THINK BRAVELY, but as far as  interviews go, I would say their motto must be INTERVIEW INCONSISTENTLY. While most Kellogg interviews are moderately difficult in terms of the kind of questions that are asked and the attitude of the interviewers (admissions officers, alumni, and students) is professional and friendly, other types of interviews are possible and not uncommon.   Given the huge number of alumni interviewers involved in this process, this is especially a problem with alumni interviews whether held on a Kellogg Interview Day (many applicants and interviewers all meeting at the same place for one-to-one interviews) or just through an arranged one-to-one off-campus interview. Even on-campus interviews with students lack some consistency as I will discuss below.  Only interviews with admissions officers fit into some predictable norm of moderately difficult and professional. Some types of dysfunctional Kellogg interviews:

The Cake walk: The lovely expression “as easy as cake” can be applied to some international interviews that I have heard about. This can be nice for the applicant, of course, but surely is unfair for other applicants. A cake walk interview consists of some of the standard Kellogg interview questions, but everything is very surface level and most of the interview is just nice conversation. The interviewer then prepares a sterling evaluation of the applicant even in terms of areas that were not necessarily addressed in the interview because the men involved (not always, but typically from what I can see this involves men and is just another form of immediate locker room type bonding). If you find you are having an apparently very easy interview, just make sure you work as many key points about yourself into the conversation while maintaining a positive and friendly feeling about the whole thing.

“You really don’t fit because I don’t like you”: The worst reports I have heard about have involved Kellogg alumni interviewers who expressed their dislike for the applicant. The interviewer uses highly judgmental language that often barely hides bias. This bias might be gender-based, class-based, or industry-function based. We are not talking here about merely an agressive interviewer, but rather an interviewer who actively looks down on the applicant.  Frankly I have never read or been about such an interview being conducted in the US, but I do know about such unpleasant interviews conducted through Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The only thing I can suggest during such an interview is that you hold your own, don’t cave against bully you are dealing with, but respond aggressively in defending yourself and why you belong at Kellogg. The abuse of power is an ugly thing. If you feel you have been treated particularly ba dly, you should consider reporting the details of this to Kellogg admissions.

English not spoken: One of the best reasons to eliminate alumni interviews completely especially when an admissions office is trying to get a report on the English ability of the applicant is because alumni interviewers don’t always conduct some or even most of the interview in English. I have client reports of this from around the world. This can be to the advantage or disadvantage of the applicant.  If an applicant is trying to really highlight their English communication ability, having an interview that is not conducted in English might not be particularly helpful. In addition, speaking in another language is often a gateway to the two previous types dysfunctional interviews I mentioned above.  I have no specific suggestions for what you can do when an interview is not conducted in English if you think the interview is going well. If you think the interview is not going well, you can consider this grounds for informing Kellogg admissions. Si nce Kellogg admissions waives some interviews and subsequently conducts telephone interviews, I would not be surprised if your interview was initially waived. Most applicants will not want to complain about an interviewer, but if you feel you were treated badly, it is worth considering. Advice for international applicants who really want to highlight their English communication skills: Go interview on-campus because campus interviews will be conducted in English. 

Bored, hungover, busy, and/or tired: Most reported student interviews are not like like this, but it is no surprise that some of these interviews involve student interviewers who wish they were some where else doing something else (studying, sleeping, recruiting activities, etc.).  Not fun if you have traveled to Evanston and find your interviewer is just not that engaged in the process. If your interviewer seems less than engaged, just make the possible case for yourself and don’t let their indifference get to you. The worst thing you can do is react to someone else’s lack of energy.  You must maintain your enthusiasm even in the fact of complete indifference. Just imagine you are talking to a mirror and ignore the interviewer’s lack of engagement. I don’t think you can really complain to admissions about this issue. Just be aware that might happen.

While I think it is nice that Kellogg basically interviews all applicants (some applicants are waived initially from interviewing but ultimately do a telephone interview), it does come at the cost of consistency.  I do think that putting all applicants on level playing field means giving them an interview that is conducted with a fairly high degree of consistency.  Of course, the moment alumni are involved at any school, consistency tends to get lost unless the school really works hard to maintain standards and weed out bad interviewers.  I know many alumni do a great job and should be praised for their involvement with the process, but unfortunately this is not always the case.   I have pointed these issues out so you are prepared for the worst case scenarios. Hopefully you will not experience them.

Best of luck with admission to Kellogg’s Class of 2015!

-Adam Markus

I am a graduate admissions consultant who works with clients worldwide. If you would like to arrange an initial consultation, please complete my intake form. Please don't email me any essays, other admissions consultant's intake forms, your life story, or any long email asking for a written profile assessment. The only profiles I assess are those with people who I offer initial consultations to. Please note that initial consultations are not offered when I have reached full capacity or when I determine that I am not a good fit with an applicant.